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RPG industry author Alejandro Melchor suffered a stroke on March 25th, 2019, and was rushed to Angeles del Pedregal Hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery. Contributions to this fundraiser will go to help Alex and his family deal with the considerable medical expenses and assist in his recovery. Donors receive over $350 in electronic RPG product as a thank you for their donation!

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Alex for many years on projects like Mecha & Manga, Out of the Abyss, Modern AGE, and Trinity Continuum: Aberrant and hope that we can support him and his family at this time of need.

Additional donations and support are welcome, via PayPal to vasheek@hotmail.com or at the Scotiabank account number 5579-2091-0083-9130, both under the name of Adriana Melchor Lombardo, Alejandro’s sister.

About Alejandro Melchor

Freelance author and artist Alejandro Melchor lives in Mexico City and has worked in the tabletop gaming industry for over a decade. He has worked for Fantasy Flight, Green Ronin Publishing, Mongoose Publishing, Onyx Path, White Wolf, and Wizards of the Coast, among others.

Some of Alex’s work includes Mecha & Manga and contributions to The Atlas of Earth-Prime for Mutants & Masterminds, contributions to the Blue Roseand Modern AGERPGs, and to the Six of Swords adventure series and Threefold setting for those games. He contributed to the Storypath editions of both the Æonand Aberrantgames for Trinity Continuumand Champions of the Scarred Lands from Onyx Path Publishing, was an author for the campaign adventure Out of the Abyss for Dungeons & Dragons, and was both an author and artist for High Frontier from Mongoose Publishing.

A longtime fan of anime and manga, Alex later became editor of a local fanzine in his native Mexico City and active in fandom. He combines his loves of writing, drawing, and manga in his online webcomic Nahast: Lands of Strife, online at nahast.spiderforest.com.

Polyamorous (I’ve been in a poly triad relationship for 10 years now).

Pagan (minister and co-founder of a neo-pagan temple; not an orientation issue, but one of religious freedom, which I also believe in strongly).

I’ve already blogged on my favorite “coming out” story and the importance of NCOD and being out, so I won’t repeat myself here. Instead, I’ll just say that the reason why National Coming Out Day is important, and why I keep coming out—in-person, online, and in social media—is because it still matters, and I’ll keep doing it until it doesn’t. When Joss Whedon was asked why he writes such strong female characters, he said, “Because you keep asking me that question.” It’s the same for being out. It matters to everyone until it doesn’t matter to anyone.

We’ve come further with sexual and gender rights in my life than I would have imagined when I first became aware of my own orientation. We still have a long way to go, however, when it’s still legal to discriminate in employment and housing based on sexual orientation and gender identity, when some 40% of homeless youth identify as something other than heterosexual or cis-gendered, when violence against trans-people is on the rise, and when being queer is still a literal death-sentence (or prison-sentence) in many parts of the world.

So “come out, come out, wherever you are,” because visibility matters, you matter, and the willingness to stand up and say, “We’re here and we’re queer” has been one of the greatest forces for change in the modern world.

So thanks to a combination of back issue collections released on DVD and my iPad (and the ComicZeal app) I’ve been spending some time in the Silver Age of Marvel Comics, notably the early issues of Avengers and Fantastic Four. While reading Avengers #22 (wherein “Cap’s Kooky Quartet” breaks up and Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch try to find work in a circus — and that’s just the “B” plot!) I was struck by something.

Captain American is up against Power Man, the Enchantress’ latest plaything, with all the powers of his predecessor, Wonder Man. In short, he’s super-strong and invulnerable. Really invulnerable. Cap quickly realizes nothing he can do can hurt this guy, even though he’s got it all over him in the fighting skills department. What’s more, when the rest of the Avengers arrive, none of them can hurt Power Man either: he shrugs off Hawkeye’s explosive arrows and Quicksilver’s super-fast punches, even the Scarlet Witch’s hexes (as this is long before other writers decided she was a certified Threat to Reality™ able to do almost anything).

How do the Avengers win the day? (Spoiler warning if you haven’t read the issue): They hold out long enough for the Enchantress to realize her scheme to frame them and break them up has failed. She takes a magical powder and vanishes, leaving a heartbroken Power Man behind, who surrenders, deprived of his motivation for fighting any longer!

Scenes like this one make me aware of how often in the comics heroes manage to overcome challenges, including “unbeatable” foes, through cleverness, determination, and other “lateral” means rather than the RPG-favored “beat on the villain until he’s out of hit points” (or “at incapacitated condition” to use Mutants & Masterminds vernacular).

I’ve heard many times that putting a villain into an RPG scenario “the heroes can’t possibly beat” is “unfair” and “cheating” on the part of the GM, as if every challenge in an RPG should and must be able to be overcome by a good roll of the dice and a straightforward application of the characters’ abilities. While I have nothing against an old-fashioned super-powered slugfest, from time to time I think it’s healthy for a game and an ongoing series to introduce challenges—and foes—the heroes can’t just punch or blast, but force them to come up with a lateral win.